In 1999 I fell in love, married and died for the first time. The girl was Buket, the marriage lasted three days and my death 3 years. After all the events in my life it was finally an arrow from a familiar bow that got me... left me strung out on the edge of nowhere staring over bridges into dark waters and looking for heavy stones that would permanently weigh my body down. London transformed from a place of beauty into a prison of smells, scents and memories. It was the only time I’ve ever felt abandoned to the wolves, the only time my flesh was up for grabs... I was so alone I was nowhere, so suicidal I was already dead. This post is of love, obsession, loss and hopelessness. This post is straight from the belly of The Black House

I first met Buket in a dark bar on the Fulham Palace Road. I was returning from the funeral of my Grandad and had dashed in to escape the torrential rains and the devils lightening that crackled overhead as South London turned pewter and erupted into storm. She had sought me out in the darkest, loneliest corner of the bar and had awoken me with a light shake and two large brown eyes

"Have you smoked too much?” she asked in foreign English. I smiled, shook my head and tapped my nose. “No, something else.” I said. I fell back to sleep, but when I woke again she had pulled a chair up to the table and was sitting there smoking and waiting. She told me she was from Istanbul and was working in London as an au pair. We remained there like that until last orders, our chairs inching closer together until our knees were touching . We swapped cigarettes in order to touch each others hands and I lent across the table and whispered things to her just to feel her dark hair on my face. Sometimes I would start sinking into sleep and when I'd awaken I’d catch her looking at me. I done the same... stealing hidden glances when she wasn’t looking... blinking her beauty into my head... a beauty that was so immense it made me sad.

By the time we left the bar the storm had calmed. We stood outside waiting for some advance from the other... the silence of the ‘what now?’ Finally I asked her where she lived and she explained it was on a street at the back of Putney Heath. The Heath is a large expanse of wasteland, parkland & open space. It was there that in the late 80’s a series of brutal rapes had occurred. I told Buket this and then I offered to walk her home

As I accompanied Buket over Putney Bridge the lashing winds and rains whipped up again. I pulled her in close, removed my jacket and chucked it over our heads. We hurried along like this, past the swirling river and off into the mist. When we finally arrived at the house where she was staying we stood once again in awkward silence. I tried to move but couldn’t... for some reason I didn’t want to leave. Beneath the wet and the cold there was a warmth... a warmth that neither of us wanted to detach ourselves from. It wasn’t touch or contact, it was something so much more... an excitement that glowed within us like lava from the core of all existence. I eventually moved off into the rain, but a few metres down the road I turned around and shouted “Would you like to walk a little more?” And without a word she gave her answer and came running.

We finally came to a stop at the bottom of a long shadowy tree lined avenue... an open paint flecked bench offered us rest but not shelter. We sat there, huddled tightly together... cheek to cheek as the rain plummeted and fell like dead birds around us. There was no kissing, no fondling, no words... just two strangers with the same eyes, the same hopes and the same loneliness staring out into a raging storm. And as the trees swayed and bent, and the rains and the gales lashed cars and buildings, we peered out from under my jacket and watched the beauty as nature battered the world and the city... taking revenge on all the cruelties that had been inflicted upon us. This was the beginning of the end of all our past tragedies, the start of the healing process, the beginning of stark truth. But as we know, despair and suffering are never more than a shadows length behind in this life, and as this night beckoned the end of many hurts and traumas so it welcomed the beginning of a new disease... a disease so deadly that it takes more lives per year than any other... on the wings of the storm we fell in love

After that night we swapped numbers and waited in desperation for our phones to ring. We met up and I took Buket on tours of London.... clubs, pubs & parks. Being from the Bosphorus she adored the sea, but as there is no sea in London we gave our hearts to the river. I introduced her to parks and secret gardens, and by late summer she had fallen in love with London's public spaces... she had swapped blue for green. For me London had also transformed... from a place of shadows and mirth into cherry blossom and floral scents. Parks and gardens came alive, and the brown sludge of the river suddenly flowed clear and led to unknown and fantastic places

Buket moved in with me, sharing the house in Fulham with my friend and I. Bed covers were changed, the thick blankets I used as permanent curtains were removed from the windows, and the floor was no longer allowed to be used as an ashtray. It was fresh clothes and a shower once a day... proper dinners and sanitary living. But it felt good and it felt right and as the spring crept off the back of winter, the layers of dirt were slowly washed away.

But it was a rocky romance. It was so intense and desperate that a wrong word from either lip would send the other reeling into fathoms of insecurity and jealousy. And as the intensity grew and suicide pacts beckoned, I realised that this was not a healthy love... it was a draining, exhausting black love... an obsession that had only one logical conclusion: death. I watched each day as this love warped into something new, something bent and twisted... as eyes released tears of history and orgasms become desperate cries of help. We couldn’t get close enough to one other... we wanted to become one, but we were separated by our pasts and an eternity of wants and needs. And it was this that ate away at us like cancer.

During the courtship my drug use was open and honest (well almost). Because though Buket was aware that I was crushing up Subutex and snorting them every few hours, she was unaware that I was in the backroom piping heroin and crack.... meeting dealers in restaurant toilets and that the man who she thought was my manager at work was in fact a drug dealer. Of course, she had promised me that my drug use was my business and that she would not be like the others and ask me to quit, but barely a month into the relationship she blew up and demanded that I stop and abandon myself wholey to her. Unfortunately I was incapable of this... love was one thing, safety was another, and this wasn’t a safe love; it was a dangerous messy affair and one in which I needed drugs to get through the exhausting emotions of each day. Still, I had no choice but to go along with her wishes and feign desire to get clean. We came to the arrangement that she would hold my supply of subutex and anytime I needed or felt like it I would phone her and she’d meet me with 5 little white pills. Gradually it would descend to 4, 3, 2,1 until the time I would no longer need them.

I phoned Buket almost daily after this... she became my dealer, doctor & drug counsellor. Sadly by the time I arrived to meet her my mind was intent on getting opiates into my blood, and with barely a kiss or a “hello” I’d snatch the subutex from her, rush into the nearest bar or McDonald's toilet and crush them down and suck them up. I’d then slide down the wall in relief, waiting the 15mins it took for them to get into my system and attack my brain. I would then return zombie eyed and full of shame, apologizing for my weakness and pledging undying love. But she understood I was there for the drugs and not for her, and it was just another of a million problems that plagued us.

Another problem was her mental illness. She had a split personality and this had been accentuated after the trauma of being repeatedly raped by her schizophrenic younger brother just before coming to London. Actually this was the real reason she was even here, her father banished her from Istanbul & the family house on account of her outrageous tales of incest. Through every pore in our skins seeped darkness... black tales and black experiences. Our nights became a time of stories and dark reminiscences... our wide eyes glowering to candle light as we took it in turn to relate our histories of horror. We told our tales and then lost ourselves in music and love. But now in our glances there was a sadness and a fear... an understanding that we were probably the worst possible thing we could offer each other. Summer was coming to an end, and although love still existed enemy forces were encroaching slowly from all sides.

Buket had planned her return to Istanbul for mid November and we both lived in dread of this date. We made hurried plans so as not to separate... not then.. not forever. Our talks and discussions brought this game plan: We would marry in London, she would head off to Istanbul two days later and I would join her in December for the wedding reception which would be held there. But this trip was not just for the reception, I wouldn’t be coming back... we were setting up life in Turkey, an apartment overlooking the Bosphorus Straits.

We married in November, her in a black wedding dress and me in my funeral suit... the same one I had been wearing when we first met. It was a bizarre affair. I was working on that day and in a large van at lunch time all the firm travelled down to the wedding.... colleagues in work overalls and with black hands celebrating and throwing confetti as we left the registry office. Neither of us believed in marriage, we went through with it because her family were muslim and it was the only way we could openly share the same bed together.

As we sat for drinks in the bar afterwards, just Buket, my family and I, I looked across the table at her beauty. We had married for very specific reasons, but in that moment, in that millisecond of happiness before our hells would collide, I was proud. I was proud of her, of me of my wife, and I think she was too.... for a smiles length of time she was proud to have the name Levene. Though an hour later she would be in fits of fury as I returned from the toilets with a single streak of crusty white powder running from my nose and then nodded into the wedding meal. And as she pointed to my nose, letting me know the streak of residue hadn’t passed unnoticed, I knew.... I knew that in two days I would take her to the airport and would never see her again. There would be no reception... no Bosphorus dreams.. only heartache, divorce, pills, heroin and crack.*

(2)

The Taxi pulled up at 4pm. I bundled Buket's suitcase into the boot and slipped in the back beside her, my breath awash with the nutty scent of piped heroin.We had arranged for the taxi to exit London by a very specific route - a mini tour of all the streets, avenues and bars that had fuelled these past months. It was a blustery English day and the autumn light was already fading. We looked out the window together and watched as London rolled away into history and memory... as the motorway took us out of the reverie and on the 45miniutes journey to Gatwick Airport.*

I was calm.... we was quiet... this was it. I walked Buket to the departure gate, and we stood outside holding one another. “We’re never going to see each other again, are we?” I said.... holding back tears that could not be held back.. “This is the end isn’t it?” She kissed my nose and wiped my eyes... and then she broke down herself and started making desperate promises and gestures of love. Her eyes wide and speaking a hundred thoughts at once. We held each other on last time and I sucked in an audible lungful of air and courage. Trailing fingers broke free and without looking back I headed off, my tears falling freely as I made my way back home. Patting my pocket to make sure the two little bags of heroin were still there.

We kept in contact over the next month... daily phone calls and desperate pleas for the time to quicken up it’s pace. The reception was planned and booked and I had bought my plane tickets and that of my mothers and sisters for the event. But then one dull afternoon, an event happened that would almost kill me and push me fully into the arms of heroin and crack. A conversation so bizarre that I still don’t understand it now. But in that conversation my wife would slip into psychosis, threaten to have me killed and we would never speak nor see each other again.

I received the call at work, it was Buket and she was desperate... crying and swearing undying love: “I need you... can you come earlier... you need to be here now!”

“I can’t just leave like that” I said. “Anyway, I’ll be there in 14 days.. it’s not so long.” And then she changed.... for the third time in our relationship her psychosis appeared and in a click of the fingers she was a different person... someone evil, uncaring and spiteful. “14 days!!! You think that’s not long.... how can you be so fucking cold! I need you and you speak with tiredness... yeah, yeah, yeah! Are you that bored by me???”

"I’m just a little tired...”
“Tired!!! how can you be tired... we only speak once a day... how can that tire you!” And then the phone went dead and so did I... because I knew from experience that when she became like this she was inaccessible... she was no longer there.

That evening I tried to phone, but got no response. I was in complete panic and began phoning her friends and family. Finally I got through to her family home and it turned out she was there but refused to speak to me. Her father however had this to say:

"The marriage is over. My daughter says it was a mistake and she no longer wants to see or hear from you again... EVER! Please send her clothes and belongings over and do not call back!”

Well I did call back... many times but Buket wouldn’t speak with me, and as the realisation dawned that our beauty was dead, I sunk into a depression and a hurt that gave a self-destructive edge to my recklessness. London and her memories began taunting me and I started to die... and then I broke down and cried. This life was not for me.... all the hurt and the pain and the tragedy and the upset and abuse and...and... and... it could keep it... I’d had enough! But life doesn’t care for such despair and 2 weeks later she delivered my friends dead body to my feet, and for a while I gave up... but you already know that story.

It took me a whole year to get over the break-up, and three years of heroin abuse to ease the pain. Since that bizarre phone call with Buket I have never seen, spoke nor heard from her again. We’ve never divorced and I never sent her clothes back. I hold no ill will towards her, and have no desire to see her again... it’s something that is done and dusted. Instead I think and I laugh.... I laugh about my 3 day marriage and I laugh at just how very human it is. All the things that have passed my way, and finally it was the old dart of love that got me... brought me to my knees screaming for mercy. And I’m proud of that.... I’m proud because I can love and I can hurt. I am proud that after everything I am not numb, disconnected and unfeeling. I am proud because I have a heart... an open heart and a heart that can be broken.

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This is a reprint of an already published post. The orginal was sadly and callously deleted by someone I thought loved me. In the end it was just another person with gaffer tape trying desperately to mask the truth and silence my history. I still love that person just as much, and more than I could ever love anyone else, but I cannot accept such things even in love.

I am no stranger to needles, but will not have them stich my mouth shut or sow my hands together. My expression is sacred and all that makes thepast worthwhile. If it's deleted, then so am I.

Fotunately, I saved all the wonderful comments that were postedin response to the original post and will repost them in due course.

Oh my. My wife and I were discussing the possibility of a missing post last week (She noticed, not me, which surprised me because I still for some reason think she doesn't read this) .

It's messed up; but now, as a friend of mine says, it is your task to practice forgiveness.

I'm putting that on a lighter, gonna make a cool bundle.

Let me tell you, I read the whole thing again, couldn't tear away even though I knew the story. It's a phenomenal read. You have to feel at least a little good that it fires up the passions. It's a hot, sticky, torrid, evil, and desperately sad story. It's a near death experience, it is dirtier and scarier and more hopeless than anything you've written about heroin. It happens. I've been there, a lot of people have. It comes to life when you tell it.

i love this story........reminds me of one of my own. got choked and run off the 101 freeway. but that was a long time ago. and i've never seen that pock-faced love of my life again. thank you for your words, they are like things i wanted to say, but never did. i never write down the true beast of it all. i just leave it out. and you sir, are one brave fucker. and i mean that sincerely. yours. lisa douglass

I wanted to reply to this comment for a quite long time now. I do it today…

I apologized to you (and still do) for deleting this post, and you still hold it against me ; I think it’s not very fair. I admit I shouldn’t have done it (it’s art beyond its content), but as you know better than anyone, there were good reasons for that. I’m not making our things up here, but you make a point to be truthful to your blog’s friends when you’re not even this with the one you say you “still love […] just as much, and more than [you] could ever love anyone else”. I’m very touched by this declaration, but I’ve been awfully hurt to discover the truth on the (impersonal) internet. Couldn’t you speak to me first?It was supposed to be a fake marriage, as you wanted to help a friend staying in the country… I believed it all along and you would still make me believe this version until this post… I wouldn’t have minded the truth at the time, you know?! Anyway, I’m not your wife (sorry to tell the truth) because of that and it’s highly painful to understand after 6 years that I’m not worth the truth before the rest of the world… We’re not married for a reason I didn’t know… and you wouldn’t have ever married me if your opinion about me is that low… Anyway, I’m glad to know these things now.

You say what you want on your blog, the truth, fictions, etc., because it is poetical, because you truly are an amazing writer… You know my opinion is honest and worth. Still, when my feelings are involved in this way, not respected even after all we’ve been through together, and just not considered for an instant, my blood runs faster in my damaged veins and madness takes place… I’ve deleted what was to me a lack of respect, an insult… Things could have been different, and you know it.

After 6 years, with highs and lows, tos and fros, you left me dizzy… Won’t you please forgive me (as much as I was ready to forgive you last Thursday night)?… I no longer hear our music…

For a long time i have thought that i may be some freak, that cannot connect my experiences with any living soul. The amount of times i have Googled how to get clean and stay clean, or what to do next in order to escape my depressed prism of darkness. After all this time i have finally found and am able to read thoughts that are real and plain, with a touch of intelligent poetics. Your the man Shane, i have garnered more peace and understanding from your blogs than any counseller or key worker can ever give. Please write me an e mail if you have the inclanation, i would love to send you some thoughts on what you write, and how it connects with my long suffering soul, and punctured body.Write me at... kympton@hotmail.com

Thank you so much for sharing that such an amazing piece, compulsive to read. Oh God I understand too.. I had. A relationship like that in Spain and instead of staying six months I stayed five years. He was a cocaine addict when I met him but I joined him on the path, I loved it myself, but loved the fact, he was so truthful on it, and would really open up, like yours it was an intense relationship we couldn't get close enough to each other, from the minute we met.. the dope I could also handle when he smoked he was mellow . It was when he became dependent on alcohol that it finished us. I think it took me longed that I would even admit to recover. I never thought I would even meet someone again.. But I did its different yet the same. We are best friends and have been together 20 years I think that is the secret is to be good friends and except and trust . Wishing you the same xx

Oh WowShaneBeautiful absolutely beautiful.It made me cry with pure joy.Awesome art man.I loved the end, to be proud of loving and hurting and being open to this world, there's just nothing else really is there? A love affair with life that's what this is. You have the eyes and heart of a true poet.Im so glad I know you.Love and so much respect.Nick XXX

Breathing in. And out.Yeah man. Love like that, hanging on their breath, living for the beautiful things you have between you... It's powerful. And passionate. And in my experience love like that can't last. It's almost like, too good or something. It sounds like you two related on your past which is awesome. I'm sorry about the ending part. Another great entry Shane. Thank you again. :)

I am going through a divorce currently. But the civil action means nothing to me. I will always love my husband and be married in my heart. It's odd because it has been a very calm process for me and we are actually better friends now that we are not living together. I hope he can find the happiness in life that I could not provide for him.

It's chiche, but I really do think it's better to experience love and pain than never to know love at all.

So I'm assuming you know you're an artist with words, creating pictures one has trouble looking at, trouble turning from as well. Like a car wreck. Somewhere in all this you surely must know, even if it never happened, it's part of whatever you are now. Opinion: use it while you can. It's an incredible gift.

"I’m proud because I can love and I can hurt. I am proud that after everything I am not numb, disconnected and unfeeling. I am proud because I have a heart... an open heart and a heart that can be broken."

Bleh, I am simply at a lost for words. All I can say is, I loved this. Especially that part ^^^.

Shane, how have you been?I've been really busy with my finals (exams). It's been crazy. I'm so fuck*ng tired. But hey, I didn't forget you, so I took some minutes of my day I decided to see if you had a new blog entry.

I loved this one. I read it so fast! You have such an amazing way to describe every little moment. It is beautiful and inspiring and I love it.

Anyway, just like Oscar Wilde said: "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."

yeah, that's love. You never know how is going to end. The marriage ended but, I'm sure it was a great experience, even though the bad moments. Because those moments must be kept as well, for no future mistakes. And the good memories is to share and inspired people like me, that didn't had the chance to leave and experiment it.

Take care Kiss kissStay Strong,

Vanessa Mota

PS: I think I have some misspelling words or used the wrong expressions, but, hey, if you didn't understand, just ask, I'll try to put/write it in a different way.

I’m proud because I can love and I can hurt. I am proud that after everything I am not numb, disconnected and unfeeling. I am proud because I have a heart... an open heart and a heart that can be broken."

I second this. I love it. I want a new post Shane! ;) Oh shit, I better email you back here soon huh? Haha. I have been a lil busy myself, but I promise to get back toy you by weekends end. :)

what a story. It took place in the Black House (as you said it would on your other blog)? I'd have more to say, since I have wasted or boosted -depends on my mood- my entire youth with a manic depressive, schizoid and paranoid boyfriend. But right now I can't be arsed to rip old stories open, so I'll just leave an x, not an ex.I'm sorry I comment that late, last week I was busy turning 29. It wasn't as bad as I feared. Age is all about numbers only.x! Greta

And I’m proud of that.... I’m proud because I can love and I can hurt. I am proud that after everything I am not numb, disconnected and unfeeling. I am proud because I have a heart... an open heart and a heart that can be broken.

..yep so true!! I'm proud of you for being proud of yourself because you're worth it!

I can really relate to your stories, my partner, the love of my life is also a heroin addict... i knew that our love is true. but things can really get fucked up. I met him when I was in a foreign land, his comfort zone. we only shared 3 months of bliss i didn't know he's smoking heroin when i moved in to his place. he will left me for hours inside our room for him to smoke. knowing his past, i knew that he is on drug, but i kept on denying to myself that he already quit. he confessed to me that he is still taking drug a month before i have to leave his country. i helped him quit, jabbing tramadol and dormicum to ease the pain and for him to sleep the cravings away. it never worked. time had come when i needed to leave, i was in hurt, we both are. he never accompany me to the airport, i just have to leave while he was sleeping. i came and i visited him after 3 months. those few days was one of the most endearing days for us. but then i need to leave him again. this time around, he followed me at the airport after a fight, he doesn't want me to leave. if he only said he need me i wouldn't go back to my country. his pride and his love for drugs overtook him. we're still in touch with each other... but i know that we can't be together again...

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